BLW possible at 5 months?

[Becky77]

Boy oh boy am I risking a flaming here OK so please no-one preach to me about early weaning etc. I KNOW THE GUIDELINES. My question is, if I have decided to wean at 5 months (which I have) with the approval of my GP etc etc is it possible to start BLW now too or should I wait until 6 months?

the good thing about blw is that it's completely up to the child when they start self-feeding.

you can;t make a baby who is not ready do BLW

if they can pick the food up , chew and swallow, then they are ready for BLW. if they can't, they aren;t

may i be so bold as to ask why you are weaning at 5 months? i won;t flame you, promise!!

Well she's had a piece of very soft pear, picked up, sucked off a bit and swallowed but I'm scared to give her anything more chunky.

I'm weaning her early because she can sit up, has great motor control so can put a spoon in her mouth, she's way more than doubled her birth weight (7lb10 - over 18lbs) and when I tentatively offered her some babyrice she gobbled it down exitedly. So no medical reason, just mothering instinct... Plus she was a week late so technically only 3 weeks early.

well keep doing what you are doing, and remember that she is learning about taste and texture , so don;t worry about more chunky stuff or 3 meals a day yet, offer her finger food on her highchair tray and see what happens

Do whatever you and your baby can manage.
I used Annabelle Karmel book to help me wean my daughter. I started at 17 weeks. The guidance states 6 months as an arbitrary figure, it also states to wait til you see the signs and so long as they're past 17 weeks that's fine.
I started with spoons of baby rice at lunch, but she wasn't fussed til I tried banana. She was able to hold the spoon and guide it to her own mouth , so in a way it was baby lead weaning, it just suited us better.
no matter what anyone tells you, your baby may or may not manage blw so why not just try it?
My sister used the AK book and my Mum said it was pretty much what she did (minus pureeing everything, a fork did me fine!) and I eat well so that was good enough for me. My 18 month old is a great eater with fingers, fork or spoon as appropriate. She eats whatever I eat including chillis!
Good luck!
p.s. just never force feed and all will be well - watched a friend do it and was very disturbed.

6 months is not an arbitary figure

i am not going to go over again and again about early weaning, but i can categorically state that it is not some made up nonesense

Never said it was, but a mother knows her own baby and the advice states so long as past 17 weeks and all signs there it's fine. In first few weeks you're only giving a spoon or equivalent a day - it doesn't replace their milk.

OK can we not get into one about this here please

My other question is... If you have started with purees is it not possible to do a mix of puree and BLW?

well that's the interesting thing...

blw isn't finger food. it's letting the child self-feed, and pretty much all the time really. so a 'mix' is really just purees and finger food, which is what the govt recommends from 6 mos so you're fine there (more or less, imo if thee baby can do it, they're likely to be ready internally, just as if they don't have the core stability to walk, they don't walk iykwim?). but a mix isn't blw, according ot the definition. but that's me being technical, cos imo if you're lettinig your baby get on with things the way they want to and everyone's happy, you can't go far wrong.

well that's the interesting thing...

blw isn't finger food. it's letting the child self-feed, and pretty much all the time really. so a 'mix' is really just purees and finger food, which is what the govt recommends from 6 mos so you're fine there (more or less, imo if thee baby can do it, they're likely to be ready internally, just as if they don't have the core stability to walk, they don't walk iykwim?). but a mix isn't blw, according ot the definition. but that's me being technical, cos imo if you're lettinig your baby get on with things the way they want to and everyone's happy, you can't go far wrong.

HH

That's Hear Hear! I don't understand most abbreviations on here so am making up my own!

at 5 months chances are your baby won't be able to feed themself very much anyway. blw is about waiting until they can pick up the food from their tray/table/whatever, put it in their mouth, chew it and swallow it. so, at first they might only be able to do a bit of that. or they might just suck the food.

basically i'm saying fine give food at 5 months to play about with, but really there's no need, no rush. i'd much rather do blw at 5 months though if you must than do purees.

chamargot, you did say "The guidance states 6 months as an arbitrary figure" so that is what i picked up on

i agree with aitch;s post and did say for the OP to keep going with what she is doing

however, not everyone has read the guidance, and if they see '6 months is an arbitary figure' unchallenged, might well just plough on without considering the information about weaning.

One thing I don't get is when people talk about overfeeding babies on purees...when I give dd her food, she will stop eating when she doesn't want anymore and launch herself at the spoon (or grab it and shove it in her gob when she wants more).I thought it was normal for babies to clamp their mouths shut when they are full. So how come people manage to force/overfeed?

Oh dear...Luckily, dd can regulate her appetite (unlike her mother )

My DD doesn't really clamp her mouth shut but if she's full she doesn't swallow the puree she takes it in her mouth and lets it dribble back out... That's my stop sign! Normally we don't get to that point though as she's a hungry baby so we just have to limit the amount we give her. She is currently a chubby little thing but is also very long so not too worried. But weight has been an issue for me all my life so I dont want to start her off wrong.

becky77, i started giving my dd rice at 5 nad a half months because she was waking up hungry after previously sleeping through and like your dc can feed herself with a spoon. i read some excellent info on weaning on kellymom.com, so she doesn't have anything with sugar salt or gluten, actually to be precise she has only ever had rice, banana carrot or pear, pureed with milk. dd was literally throwing herself around to try and get to our food and drinks so i thought why not. as lulumama said at this stage it's about the experience of food, not trying to replace milk feeds. all i would say is be careful of choking, dd has one tooth and mananged to get a lump off a peice of pear which made her almost choke (had to turn her upside down etc) it was terrifying so i'm waiting till she's older now to give her finger food.

@ gokwancarr - god that's my worst fear! How terrifying for you and your LO. Our DD has one tooth too it came in last week. But yes I think I shall leave the finger food a bit longer and do the traditional puree -> lumpy puree -> finger food route

manging to get a lump off a pear doesn't mean that she's going to choke, though. if you'd left her to it she'd likely have spat it out in the end, that's what babies are designed to do.

No, I did leave her to it and she swallowed it I am drawn to BLW but I'm also scared... How do those who do BLW get over the fear factor?

Me too -I am far too terrified of having a gokwancarr experience of dd choking, although all the blw lot say that they bring it back up themselves. I think I will wait until we have done a lot of pureed stuff - I am making the purees quite gloopy. Today was v cute. She held the spoon and fed herself for some of it and got it all over her, me, the sofa...(I need to get the highchair out).

Becky - I sometimes think we are the same person! In fact, my best friend was stalking me on mumsnet to find out my user name and she narrowed it down to 2 users, me or you, as all our posts were so similar!!!

Haha, that's funny! We do seem to have been separated at birth

Oh and does that mean your name is Becky and you were born in 77? This could be spookier than I first realised